What are the benefits of the registry in Windows?There is an additional reason which prevents me from upvoting/accepting this answer. You are comparing registry to INI files, while the question is about registry versus file system. You tell that INI files problem “influenced Microsot to look for a new solution”, but the question remains; why inventing something, when there is already a solution (file system) which works well in Unix-based operating systems and solves all the concerns of INI files?